Anne's yellow gipsy hat, were
often seen in different parts of the garden at the same time; but he
never intruded into her part of the enclosure, nor did she into
Loveday's. She always spoke to him when she saw him there, and he
replied in deep, firm accents across the gooseberry bushes, or through
the tall rows of flowering peas, as the case might be. He thus gave her
accounts at fifteen paces of his experiences in camp, in quarters, in
Flanders, and elsewhere; of the difference between line and column, of
forced marches, billeting, and such-like, together with his hopes of
promotion. Anne listened at first indifferently; but knowing no one else
so good-natured and experienced, she grew interested in him as in a
brother. By degrees his gold lace, buckles, and spurs lost all their
strangeness and were as familiar to her as her own clothes.

At last Mrs. Garland noticed this growing friendship, and began to
despair of her motherly scheme of uniting Anne to the moneyed Festus. Why
she could not take prompt steps to check interference with her plans
arose partly from her nature, which was the reverse of managing, and
partly from a new emotional circumstance with which she found it
difficult to reckon. The near neighbourhood that had produced the
friendship of Anne for John Loveday was slowly effecting a warmer liking
between her mother and his father.

Thus the month of July passed. The troop horses came with the regularity
of clockwork twice a day down to drink under her window, and, as the
weather grew hotter, kicked up their heels and shook their heads
furiously under the maddening sting of the dun-fly. The green leaves in
the garden became of a darker dye, the gooseberries ripened, and the
three brooks were reduced to half their winter volume.

At length the earnest trumpet-major obtained Mrs. Garland's consent to
take her and her daughter to the camp, which they had not yet viewed from
any closer point than their own windows. So one afternoon they went, the
miller being one of the party. The villagers were by this time driving a
roaring trade with the soldiers, who purchased of them every description
of garden produce, milk, butter, and eggs at liberal prices. The figures
of these rural sutlers could be seen creeping up the slopes, laden like
bees, to a spot in the rear of the camp, where there was a kind of market-
place on the greensward.

Mrs. Garland, Anne, and the miller were conducted from one plac